JASPER, Tenn. – The relocation of Marion County’s American Jobs Center and a location for a proposed child advocacy center has been settled.
Last month, county leaders argued back and forth about where those organizations should be housed, as well as the locations of future Marion County Commission meetings and the Veterans Service Office.
The issue concerning the location of the jobs center and advocacy center was sent back to the board’s building use committee for further consideration.
At the board’s September meeting, Commissioner Matt Blansett, who is the chairman of the board’s building use committee, said that group voted unanimously to recommend moving the American Jobs Center to one side of the current Marion County Commission Building and the advocacy center on the other side of that site.
“They [American Jobs Center] would pay the utilities and the upgrades to the building,” he said.
Representatives from both organizations attended the committee’s meeting, but were not asked to attend the board’s September meeting.
Commissioner Mack Reeves, who opposed moving the jobs center to the commission building last month saying that Marion was “giving away real estate,” told the board that he’s “done a lot of research” concerning the proposed child advocacy center.
“If we’re going to do it right, in my opinion, it will come to the place that we need this whole building to do it right,” he said.
Reeves said there are many requirements and regulations that must be adhered to with a child advocacy center, and that the organization would need the entire building in the future because it would be used by the 12th Judicial District eventually.
“When you bring in all these people that have to be a part of this, I just feel like there are places more suited for [American Jobs Center],” he said. “In my opinion, you’ve got to have access [for the advocacy center] that is more than just this room.”
What children say to advocacy officials is supposed to “stay quiet,” Reeves said.
“If you put some kind of wall right there [to separate both organizations’ operations], I don’t care what goes on, you know how upset a child can get or a parent or a grandparent,” he said. “They [jobs center employees] are going to hear it through that wall.”
Blansett said advocacy center officials told the committee they would construct separate rooms where only a single large room exists now to accommodate the center’s needs.
“As far as [future] expansion, I can’t answer that,” he said. “They felt very comfortable that this room would work for what they needed right now.”
Reeves said the jobs center should be located on or near the Marion County Regional Institute of Higher Education campus.
“I don’t understand why they can’t be incorporated there where they could lead those individuals that come in into maybe the technical training or the academic part being right there on the site,” he said.
Commissioner Gene Hargis reminded fellow board members that the advocacy center was not asking for any financial help from the county other than the use of the building.
Hargis, who also works for the Marion Sheriff’s Department, said he was asked to gather data on child abuse cases in Marion, and when he shared that with county leaders, they were “somewhat surprised.”
“We’re averaging one a day, sometimes two a day,” he said. “These range from sexual abuse to physical abuse to neglect. This is a real problem, and it’s something that we [law enforcement] live with every day. It’s not talked about on the news, and it’s not talked about on the street. People don’t realize how much of this there is out there.”
The board voted 15-1 to accept the building use committee’s recommendation and move both organizations to the commission building.
Reeves, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said his vote was not because he was opposed to the advocacy center location.
“I want to make that perfectly clear,” he said. “I’m against the other part [moving the jobs center] for the simple reason that they were in here before we voted tonight.”
Mayor David Jackson said the American Jobs Center was relocated to the right side of the Marion County Commission Building as a temporary location before the board’s vote.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.